1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally concerns secure monitoring systems for coin-operated machines. The present invention particularly concerns physically and electrically secure electronic systems for monitoring and reporting the coin receipts and the usage activity of a coin-operated electronic machine such as, for example, a video game.
2. Description of the Prior Art
2.1 The Problem of The Embezzlement of Proceeds From Certain Coin-Operated Machines
Coin-operated machines are ubiquitous in modern American life circa 1993. Because of societal demand for convenience items, information, entertainment, and other goods and services suitably dispensed or administered by machines, and because of the high cost of using human labor to collect small, coin-denominated, fees, coin-operated machines have proliferated into diverse areas and functions. Nonetheless to the diversity of function performed, most coin-operated machines are highly evolved, and considerably sophisticated, in their performance of such functions. This is simply to say that, from the lowly newspaper vending machine to the sophisticated slot machine, coin-operated machines generally work quite well, and reliably, for their users. High performance has led to high expectations. American consumer tolerance for coin-operated machine malfunctions, especially such malfunctions as might involve any consumer loss of monies, is low. Coin-operated machines are seldom given a "second chance" to perform, and are generally shunned after the slightest incipient malfunction.
Coin-operated machines are typically reasonably protected against causal user theft or fraud. The coin boxes of the machines typically have physical locks of quality as reasonably suits the amounts of money protected. Coin-accepting mechanisms typically have slug rejecters, such as those of the magnetic and optical types, to reject undesirable coins, slugs and bills.
Most coin-operated machines are not, however, protected against fraudulent manipulations and/or embezzlements by persons who have access--either authorized or unauthorized--to the interior of the machine. Normally the only persons having legitimate access to the interior of the machine are owner/supplier of the machine, or his legitimate agents. The typical recourse of the owner/supplier of a coin-operated machine whose machine is being robbed of goods, services and/or money is to increase or alter the security of that machine which is being violated--for example, to change the locks--or to relocate the machine.
Sometimes the economic inducement to rob coin-operated machines is so great as to induce fraud or embezzlement. By their very nature coin-operated machines typically dispense the same or highly similar goods or services only in moderate sized, and often repetitive, streams typically having only modest value per unit time. Accordingly, major fraud or embezzlement directed against coin-operated machines and machine owners necessarily involves theft of the money proceeds of the machines.
Fraudulent misappropriation, or theft, or embezzlement of the monies collected by vending machines that dispense goods is generally readily detectable as an inconsistency between the goods sold and the monies collected. However, coin-operated machines that dispense entertainment, or indeterminate amounts of goods, are opposite. These machines may be subjected to undetectable thefts of their services, or embezzlements of their collected (coin) proceeds.
Foremost among the coin-operated machines receiving significant amounts of money in return for dispensing indeterminate amounts of goods and/or services are slot machines. Slot machines normally have significant physical security so as to prevent both the theft of their services (an opportunity to win a gambling prize) such as by a defeat of their coin reception mechanisms, or theft of the money proceeds within the machines. Many slot machines are located on the premises of the owner/controllers of the machines, and may not be effectively emptied of monies save by authorized personnel performing normal collections. Nonetheless to their excellent physical security, the money receipts, and play action, of high payout slot machines may be monitored in real time by automated electrical and electronic systems. The machine status is sometimes continuously reported to a "teller cage", or "back room", where machine use and play action may be monitored for purposes of promotion and payout as well as security.
Another type of coin-operated machine receiving significant amounts of money in return for dispensing indeterminate amounts of goods and/or services is a video game machine, such as is located in a video arcade. The current, circa 1993, total size of the video game industry in the United States is $7.5 billion per year, or larger than the motion picture industry. Many individual video game machines receive (generally in coin) proceeds in excess of $100 per day, and as many as one hundred (100) or more machines may typically be located in a single arcade, or gaming hall.
A particularly difficult security problems is presented to the owner/operator of the video game in that (i) he/she does not normally own or control the premises where the game is located, (ii) the game typically accumulates significant amounts of money between collections, (iii) the physical security of the game may be subject to defeat, especially as the game is outside of its owner's control for extended time periods, and (iv) the internal security of the game (to such extent as such even exists) may likewise be subject to defeat. To such extent as the owner/operator of the video game cannot accurately tell the number of games played (as an indication of expected money receipts), and/or is deceived into believing that the game has incurred less usage, and has collected less monies, than is in actual fact the case, then the owner/operator may be defrauded of revenues that are properly due him/her.
A video game is typically located in an arcade containing many dozens, or hundreds, of such games. The arcade owner/operator is usually not the same entity as the owner/operator of some, or all, of the video games located in the arcade. The arcade owner may require access to the interiors of all games for the correction of minor problems such as coin jams, and/or the unloading of collected coins so that the coins may be given to players in exchange for paper money in a continuous cycle. For such rare games as the arcade owner/operator does not have authorized access much time is available to for a dishonest owner/operator to surreptitiously defeat the locks of a video game.
The rental of the video game by the arcade owner/operator is often based on a percentage of the collections of the machine, for example 50%--50%. The owner of the machine verifies machine activity through a simple coin counter. This coin counter is subject to selective disconnection, rollback, and all sorts of mechanical and electrical manipulations to defeat or to alter the accuracy of its count. It is thus a relatively simple matter for a dishonest arcade owner who wishes to fraudulently appropriate 100%, instead of his/her proper share, of a portion of the proceeds of a video game to adjust or defeat the counter of the game in direct correspondence to the amount of monies embezzled from the game, and from the game's owner/supplier.
The present invention will bee seen to deal with the monitoring, accounting, and reporting of the (i) activities, and (ii) receipts of a coin-operated machine, normally a video game, in a manner that is not readily susceptible of being either defeated or circumvented in order to misappropriate either the (i) services or (ii) the coin proceeds of the machine.
2.2 Previous Reporting by Coin-Operated Machines Over Electronic Communications Links
It is known that coin-operated machines may report their activity over electronic communications links, including infrared light communications links.
2.2.1 Previous Electronic Newspaper Racks Reporting Sales Activity
The TK-Electronic.TM. (trademark of Kaspar Wire Works, 1127 Sho-Rack Drive, Box 1127, Shiner, Tex. 77984) coin mechanism of Kaspar Wire Works, 1127 Sho-Rack Drive, Box 1127, Shiner, Tex. 77984 is retrofittable to all TK newspaper racks to collect, store, and, via a Sho-Rack Scanner.TM. (trademark of Kaspar Wire Works) transfer sales data from the newspaper rack to a central sales outlet.
An electronic circuit within the newspaper rack accumulates information regarding the times and amounts of all sales. A "scanner" communicating by infrared light is held proximately to a newspaper rack in order to unlock the paper door, set an internal clock of the rack, and set the sales price. The electronic circuit reports the total amount of sales, the total cash collected, the last two sales prior to audit, the rack load time, the time of first sale, the sales in each of twelve programmable time slots, draws, returns, and audit time. The sales information collected daily is taken, and downloaded, into a computer. Software operative in the computer helps to formulate daily sales reports, rack locations and maintenance reports, full reports on draws and returns, reports on the times and locations of sales, cash control reports, and route reports.
2.2.2 Proposed Electronic Parking Meters
It has been proposed in a 1993 projected "EMM" product offering of Duncan Industries, Parking Control Systems, P. O. Box 849, 340 Industrial Park Road, Harrison, Ark. 72601, U.S.A., that an Electronic-Mechanical Mechanism ("EMM") for a parking meter should monitor, and electronically report, coin-handling activity.
According to Duncan Industries, each electronic mechanical mechanism ("EMM") is proposed to be equipped with an Infrared (IRED) communications port. This port shall be capable of sending and receiving data to an authorized hand held terminal. The communications port shall be activated only by an authorized hand held data terminal device and shall ignore any other signal or device. The communication shall ignore any other signal or device. The communication port shall be capable of performing the following activities: Retrieval and/or Reprogramming of Time and Rate Structure/Downloading of Audit Information (including Meter Serial Number and Total Value of Coins Accepted since last audit); Retrieval of Meter Serial Number for Maintenance and/or Inventory Functions. These communications functions shall be performed reliably under normal street conditions without the necessity of opening the housing or physically connecting to the electronic mechanical mechanism so long as the face of the mechanism is visible and legible through the housing window of the meter housing. The communications protocol shall be so designed such that only the appropriate coded signal from an authorized hand held data terminal shall enable and activate the communications functions.
The hand held data terminal device shall be equipped with an Infrared (IRED) device designed specifically for the purpose of remote communication with the electronic mechanical mechanism. The hand held data terminal device shall develop and store data internally through communications with: a personal computer (PC), electronic mechanical mechanism, and a self-contained keyboard for manual data input. When the terminal is downloaded to a personal computer it shall be possible to import the resulting files directly into a data base software system to derive various reports including Audit, Maintenance, Inventory, and Rate Structure Management.
2.3 The Function of the Coin Tracker of the Present Invention to Deal With Fraud and Embezzlement, and the Distinctions of a Coin-Tracking Device and a Reporting System So Functioning
The coin tracker mechanism of the present invention will be seen to be distinguished from such previous auditing and coin-receipts reporting systems in that both (i) the delivery of goods and/or services by the machine, and (ii) the coin receipts of the machine, are monitored and reported. Indeed, it should be considered that, when the coin tracker mechanism of the present invention is used to monitor and report on coin-operated video game machines (as is its primary intended function) then the goods and/or services provided by such a video game machine is: the service of playing a video game. The historical record of the provision(s) of this service, once the service has been provided, are notoriously easy to defeat in existing video games, as explained above. Accordingly, the independent record of the provision of services by a video game machine (the number of times that the game is played) that will be seen to be provided by the mechanism of the present invention will be recognized to be in the nature of an anti-fraud device and system, and not simply a reporting or auditing system.
Compare, for example, the existing and projected mechanisms discussed above for monitoring and reporting on each of (i) newspaper machines, and (ii) parking meters. For a (i) newspaper machine the monitoring of the provision of goods and/or services by the machine--the providing of a newspaper--is essentially irrelevant. The supplier of the machine knows how many newspapers were loaded into the machine, and the coin receipts of the machine (whether monitored and reported by an automated system, or not). Accordingly, if the monies received do not match the goods (newspapers) delivered then there is theft against the machine of either (i) money and/or (ii) goods (newspapers). (It usually matters little to the supplier of the machine as to which of these occurrences is actually transpiring--the net effect on the supplier's revenues being the same. The supplier usually either increases the physical security of the machine or moves it to a more secure location.) Accordingly, no separate mechanism--like as to that of the present invention--is necessary to detect fraud against newspaper machines or any machines delivering goods.
The monitoring and reporting of a (ii) parking meter is a different story. The parking meter delivers a service: an authorization to park legally for such a period of time as is purchased from the meter. This service is subject to theft, and the coin proceeds of this service are also subject to theft. However, just as with a video game, the theft of services relative to the difficulty, and the risk of detection and apprehension for theft, involved usually precludes that the user(s) of the machine are significant thieves of the machine's services. Unlike a video game, however, a parking meter must generally be robbed of its coin proceeds in public. A large number of meters must be robbed relatively frequently to equal the amounts of funds that may be fraudulently embezzled from video games. Finally, it is difficult to "skim" the proceeds of parking meters because the required high number of unauthorized accesses for purposes of theft promotes detection, and arrest. A parking meter that is simply emptied of proceeds is usually detectable when normal collection personnel arrive some period of time after a previous routine collection, but only momentarily after a theft. Accordingly, and although anti-fraud monitoring of parking meters might be useful (especially as involves fraud by authorized collection personnel), there are, to the best knowledge of the inventors, no such anti-fraud devices or systems for parking meters or other service-providing coin-operated machines.
The coin tracker mechanism of the present invention will be seen to be distinguished from previous auditing and coin-receipts reporting systems in that its monitoring and reporting of (i) the delivery of goods and/or services by the machine, and (ii) the coin receipts of the machine, is both physically and electrically secure. The security of the coin tracker mechanism will be seen to be a function of (i) its electrical location, and connection, within the coin-operated machine, and (ii) its own, internal, physical and electrical security features. Although no security is absolute, and the mechanism of the present invention might be expected to be susceptible of being defeated by the considerable resources of, for example, the intelligence agency of a major government, the mechanism will be seen to be very difficult of being defeated, or circumvented, by such petty thieves and embezzlers as have previously robbed video game machines.